PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - In-flight spar failure the tale of my broken tail
Old 5th December 2005 | 21:48
  #6 (permalink)  
Milt
 
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 1,300
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From: Canberra Australia
I_reason

How lucky can you be!!

You have joined a very exclusive club. We should give it a name such as "The Broken Spar Club" or "Oblivian Escapees".

Fortunately there are very few of us and most eligibles didn't make it.

The three surviving foundation members could well be self, another pilot and a flight test engineer. We were the crew of a prototype Valiant which suffered a broken wing main spar. Overloaded alternative structure managed to hold the wing in place until landing when the increased dihedral cancelled out.

There used to be another member who recognised he had a broken wing when doing some aerobatics. Stayed inverted until very short final when he rolled out to a floppy touch down. Having survived that his number came up later when he was knocked down from his bicycle by a wayward car.

How many others are there out there who have survived to join our exclusive club?
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